


Losses and Lamentations

by MelindaYoung



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1995-10-01
Updated: 1995-10-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22139947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelindaYoung/pseuds/MelindaYoung
Summary: Dana Scully has a dark night of the soul, facing her sorrow and guilt over the murder of her sister.
Kudos: 4





	Losses and Lamentations

#  **LOSSES AND LAMENTATIONS**

By Melinda Young

It was a hot night for early May, even by Washington, D.C. standards. A rain shower had passed by an hour earlier, but it had only been enough to wet the streets and amplify the traffic sounds coming in through the open windows of Dana Scully’s apartment. Night noise, big city, the hum of life on its endless journey into the future. It was Saturday, and people were out and about. But Dana wasn’t.

The week had been a quiet time at the office, or at least as quiet as things ever got, and Dana had reserved this Saturday night to get some good, hard scrubbing done on her apartment. She’d missed her usual thorough spring cleaning this year, and she couldn’t let herself put it off.

But she was putting it off. She sat on the sofa, staring at her orderly apartment. So organized, so fastidious. So like her, Melissa used to say, every little nook and cranny accounted for, not a touch of chaos anywhere. She sat and stared with unfocused eyes at her surroundings. Everything was reminding her of Melissa tonight. The gaudy clay statue from Costa Rica that Melissa had given her for her birthday two years ago to provide that missing touch of chaos. The family photo on the bookshelf that she’d turned face down two days ago because she couldn’t bear to look at the smile on her sister’s face. …The section of floor by the door that the professional cleaners had scoured endlessly before the last traces of Melissa’s blood were finally removed.

When Dana had come home the first time after her sister’s death, to her horror she had found she was standing on the red-brown stain on the floor. Someone had obviously tried to clean it up so she wouldn’t see it, she didn’t know who, but the anonymous effort had failed and it was all she could do not to vomit when she saw the gory remains of her sister’s blood under her feet. That first night back, she’d sat up all night in a tight ball on her sofa, every single light in the apartment on, and wondered if she would be able to stay another moment in this place. The next morning, she called the most expensive house cleaners in the phone book and put them to work. If they could get the stain out, she would stay—if not, she would be out the door by nightfall. But God must have wanted her to stay, as the Herculean effort of the cleaners paid off and all physical trace of what had happened was removed.

But Dana didn’t need physical traces to remind her. When she looked at the doorknob, she could see Melissa’s hands turning the lock; when she looked at the door, she could see her walking urgently into the dark apartment. When she looked at the floor, she could still see the stain….

Mulder had kept the police report far away from her, despite her insistence on searching it for some hidden clue. Oh, the row they’d had in the office when she’d asked for it and he told her that he’d made sure she wouldn’t see it. They’d never had such a fight. A number of passersby even came in to see what was going on—quite a few, in fact, considering how few people traveled those basement halls near the office. But they were each hurting from their losses, and they knew it, and when Mulder disappeared for the afternoon and Skinner steadfastly refused to return her seventeen phone calls to him to complain about her partner’s unprofessional behavior, she finally calmed down enough to realize what it was she who was acting out. She and Mulder made their apologies that night over the phone and never spoke of it again.

Dana stared at the door of the closet that contained her cleaning supplies. It was closed tight, and she seemed to be making no move to open it up and get started. She sighed. Maybe the cleaning house she had to do tonight wasn’t the type she’d thought.

She’d been so strong and professional since Melissa’s death—as usual—and, after her initial tears in the hospital, she hadn’t allowed herself time to deal with her pain. That appearance of calm came at a price, though. She barely remembered the funeral. She was terrified of seeing her mother again, so afraid that the support her mother had shown her all through her career in the FBI would be gone. But her mother was merely quiet and sad, and Dana realized that her silence hurt more than any scathing lecture might have. Mostly she was afraid of what someone in the family might say to her. But no one said a word about what had happened. About the fact that it was her fault. That Melissa had died in her stead. That if Dana had not made a few mistakes, if she hadn’t gotten herself into this mess, if she’d stayed in medicine like Dad wanted, Melissa would still be alive….

Yes, this was it. It was time to face everything she’d avoided in the last month. It was time to start feeling again.

She put on a compact disc Melissa had given her for Christmas a few years ago, excerpts from some John Barry soundtracks. It was lush, romantic, a musical landscape to wade into and wallow in. She sat through the first track, waiting for something, anything, to hit, but her mind wandered away from the grief she thought she should be experiencing. She began to think about all the choices she’d made in her life—going to Maryland instead of Stanford, choosing medicine over physics, deciding on pathology, joining the FBI…. From this detached perspective, so many of her choices seemed to have been made just because everyone expected her to go some other way. She pondered her unconscious stream of words: “…choices seemed to have been made…” Had she floated through all of it so passively, drifting along some unseen current? No, she’d deliberated and weighed and calculated, as usual. But here on the sofa in the room where her sister had…she felt very passive. This life that she’d made for herself, that she thought she was steering through very nicely—it had suddenly rolled over her like monster waves on a raging sea.

The suppressed guilt hit her hard, and she found herself scrambling for a box of tissues from the bathroom. But getting up had broken the moment somehow, so she set the tissue box on the table next to her and curled up again on the couch, facing the music like some Grand Inquisitor. Okay, she thought, give me your worst. But the moment was gone, and she sat numbly, wanting to feel something and get this over with.

The music poured out from the stereo and washed around her, swelling like ocean waves and carrying her off in thought. So, now what? Was this the rest of her life? Losses, danger, watching family and friends drop away one by one? When would it end? Would it end at all? Who else in her family would die because of her? Melissa had come to help her, and for her trouble she’d gotten killed. Murdered. Gunned down in cold blood. Would the same thing happen to her mother? One of her brothers? Both of them? Someone else in the family? She thought of Mulder and everything he’d lost. His life had turned him into a near-kamikaze. The truth was his juggernaut, he felt he had no more to lose and was willing to risk everything. In that roadside diner in Maryland, he was willing to give up everything, including seeing Samantha again, to make public what they’d uncovered—only his concern for his partner left the final decision in her hands.

She wondered now if she’d made the right decision. What would she have said if she’d known that Melissa was going to die anyway, die before she could see her and say good-bye and…. Maybe she would have said to hell with it and go public. Like Mulder would have. Would she be like that someday? Alone, forsaken by family, friends, peers. She prayed to God that she wouldn’t, but the fear lingered. Where was her life going? She was thirty-one years old, in her prime—past it, in some regards. Would her life ever let her return to something resembling normalcy, with a husband, children, a dog and a cat, a house with a yard and her mother over for dinner every Sunday? She wondered at what point she would realize that she’d lost her last hope of having a real life. Her eyes began to fill with tears. “Please, God, don’t let me turn into Mulder.” She felt guilty for the words, but she meant them.

She sat for a long moment, then sighed when she realized her welling tears were receding and she was slipping back into neutral; part of her wasn’t ready to let go yet. She thought about her partner. She had fought hard not to blame him for what had happened. It would have been so easy to make him the scapegoat. After all, because she had been assigned to “spy on him,” she’d plunged off the fast track in the FBI…she’d left behind the medical path that her father had wanted for her, with little hope of going back…she’d been abducted…and she’d killed her sister. The abduction. She usually tried not to think about that. That blank spot in her memory haunted her. The aborted hypno-regression therapy that Melissa had insisted on only stirred up unpleasant images without answering anything. Would it be better to know the truth of what had happened, or never to know? The same was true for the dark and dangerous things she’d seen since she began work on the X-Files. What would have been so terrible about never knowing about the lies and cover-ups? It wasn’t as if knowing helped to stop them. Ignorance would not only have been bliss, it would have been life without guilt for her, and just plain life for Melissa….

No, she was being self-indulgent now. The what-ifs would only screw her deeper into the pit of her losses. It wasn’t Mulder’s fault. It was Theirs. Them. The people he was fighting against. They had done this to Mulder. They had done it to her. Fighting Them was the right thing to do. If she could save one other person from going through what she had, it would mean that Melissa had not died in vain. She tried to make herself believe that. But as the yearning in the florid music surrounded her, this music that she never would have bought for herself but Melissa had given to her with the observation, “This will be good for you,” she wasn’t sure. What was worth the loss of a sister? What was worth the guilt of knowing that she could have—should have—kept Melissa out of harm’s way? If only Skinner hadn’t shown up outside her door at just that moment—if only Skinner had told her the truth earlier, damn it—Melissa would be alive and calling her up on the phone to prod her and tease her like a big sister is supposed to and tell her to get a life….

Sudden tears skipped down her cheeks and she tried to catch them with her tissue. Damn it, damn it all. Why? Why did this have to happen? Shit. She hated this. It wasn’t fair. If anyone had to die, it should have been her, not Melissa. Why did Melissa have to die? This wasn’t her fight. Damn it. It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t have let this happen. She’d saved the lives of dozens of strangers, but she couldn’t even protect her own flesh and blood. Maybe it was time to quit….

The thought didn’t really startle her, it had been lurking in the shadows for some time. If she quit the FBI, at least she wouldn’t be responsible for anyone else’s death. She’d be safe. Her family would be safe. All They wanted was for the investigations to stop. She had no proof—she had less than nothing—and if she got out of the game, They would leave her alone.

Her tears waned and her numbness crept back as she contemplated how she’d changed since her sister’s death. She’d become sloppy, she’d become scared. Two weeks ago, when she and Mulder had helped out with a serial bank robbery task force, the stakeout at a bank that a tip had indicated would be robbed turned into a nightmare. When the confrontation arrived and the agents drew their weapons on the robbers, Dana fumbled with her gun and nearly dropped it. She couldn’t forgive herself for that. Her blunder didn’t affect the outcome, and all the robbers were safely arrested. But if she’d been the only agent on the scene, the robbers would have started shooting and there would have been a civilian blood bath. More people would have died because of her and her carelessness. Mulder was the only one who saw what had happened and tried to reassure her that it was just an accident, but he couldn’t keep her from condemning herself over it. It should not have happened. Lives were on the line, and she’d screwed up. Her numbness yielded to anger as she wondered why on earth she ever thought she could be an FBI agent. What madness had possessed her? She was a doctor. She was supposed to save lives. She wasn’t supposed to kill people. Or let them be killed….

The depth of her anger flooded into rage as she heard a knock on the door. She glared at it. Not another kid selling band candy! The stereo was loud enough that she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t home. No, forget it. She wasn’t going to answer the door. Let the kid think whatever he wanted.

Another knock. “Scully?”

Oh, God, Mulder. Why now? Why couldn’t he leave her alone? What fire maniac or beast woman did he want to go chasing after now? For a moment she almost hated him, him and his damned quest for the truth. The truth. The only truth he’d found was death.

“Scully?”

She sighed. She wasn’t being fair to him, but right now she didn’t feel like being fair. She switched off the stereo and stood, locking up her anger and her vulnerability as best she could, and opened the door.

She said nothing as she eyed him from the doorway, but she could tell the expression on her face must have been harder than she realized by the recoil and flash of sadness on his. They looked at each other in silence. They knew each other too well to need words for a moment like this. His apologetic gaze was met with her short, challenging sniff to clear her stuffed nose. She stood her ground in the half-opened doorway, her hand locked on the doorknob, blocking the way. But he was ignoring the message, and when it became obvious that he wasn’t going away, she let out a tight sigh and reluctantly stepped aside.

He sat on the chair as she closed the door and settled heavily back into her spot on the sofa. He was in jeans and a T-shirt, she noted absently, which meant he probably hadn’t been to the office all day. She thought how odd it was for Mulder not to work on a Saturday.

He glanced around the room, and she could see him taking in the details of the sink full of dishes, the pile of untended junk mail on the counter, and the downturned photo on the bookcase. She resented being on the receiving end of his investigative instincts.

His voice was remarkably soft: “How you doing?”

“Fine,” she said harshly, angry that her clogged sinuses made her voice resonate dully in her head.

His reply surprised her. “Good.”

Good? What the hell kind of answer was that? She wasn’t at all fine or good and he knew it. How could he even think about patronizing her? Suddenly she realized she was gazing at the floor by the door, and she looked away with a grimace to keep down the sudden welling of emotion. But before he could even offer consolation, she held up her hand to keep him at his distance and tucked her reaction back inside. He obeyed and made no move towards her. He looked back at the spot on the floor, then turned to her without making eye contact. “I know. When I was up helping Mom pack up Dad’s house, we both wondered if maybe it wouldn’t be better if we accidentally dropped a match on some gasoline-soaked rags in the living room.”

For a moment she resented his reminder of his own pain as if to one-up her, but she knew it wasn’t intentional. There was nothing dishonest or calculated about this man. He was here because he cared. How could she think such cruel thoughts about him? Her angered ebbed for a moment. In spite of herself, she almost smiled. “My neighbors probably wouldn’t appreciate that.”

“That’s the trouble with this big city living.”

They sat in silence for a while, and eventually she said, “I’m really pissed.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

“No,” she said as her anger flared, “I’m _really_ pissed. I hate this. And don’t give me any of that psychology crap and tell me it’s good to let out my anger.” Her mind was telling her mouth to stop, but some other part of her had taken over and was reveling in this chance to blast him with a broadside.

“Okay.”

Her fury had her now, rising up her spine like a serpent. She might regret this later, but she was tired of being okay for everyone else. “I hate this. It’s rotten as hell. It’s not damn fair. I hate it.”

He said nothing, which only made her angrier. This was his fault. “My dad was right. I should have stayed in medicine. This cops-and-robbers crap is bullshit. We can’t win. We lock them up, and someone else just takes their place. And those people you run with, we can’t even lock Them up. They always win. They can do whatever They damn well like, and we can’t do a damn thing about it.”

He nodded, and an overwhelming urge to hit him washed over her. She shuddered and kept it inside. She found some consolation in remembering the look of pain and surprise on his face as he spun to the ground after her bullet ripped through his shoulder. She wondered where her gun was.

“I want his address.” She remembered her gun and holster were on her dresser.

He frowned questioningly at her.

“Your ‘Cancer Man.’ Didn’t you say once you’d had his address? I want it.”

“You don’t think he still lives there?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him, the arrogant son of a bitch. He probably thinks we can’t touch him. I’m going to go over there and shoot his fucking head off.”

Mulder didn’t respond. She seethed for a few moments, then her words finally reached her brain along with the realization that there was absolutely nothing she could do about this, she was utterly helpless. Melissa had died in vain. It meant nothing. None of it meant a damn thing. She buried her face in her hands and began to cry.

In a single gesture he was up and sitting next to her on the sofa, gently rubbing her shoulder.

“Damn it, Mulder. I hate this.”

“I know.”

“It really hurts. It isn’t fair.” He nodded. She snatched a fresh tissue and wiped her cheeks in a futile gesture. “I mean, shit, this wasn’t her fight. This had nothing to do with her. It’s my fault. I knew I was in danger. I shouldn’t have turned to her for help. I should have sent her away. I knew the risks. She didn’t. I was selfish, and I got her killed. She died in my place….”

He wrapped an arm around her and held her as she cried. “I know. I know.” She settled into his embrace, needing his strength to lean on as the anger that had buoyed her up for so long flowed out, but she was surprised to hear his voice thicken with emotion: “…I know….” She looked up at him and saw tears filling his eyes. He didn’t look at her as he said, “But it was easier for me. …You lived.”

The flood burst up into her, and she choked on her tears. “God, Melissa, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.” He drew his other arm around her and held her tight against his chest as the last of her well-laid barricades came down. Up from the hidden depths exploded all of her grief and anger, her guilt, fear, and frustration. She wanted to punch, kick, and scream, but it all flowed out as tears. “…Missy…please forgive me.”

He kissed the top of her head. “She does.”

She cried and cried, for once not holding back. She cried until she ran out of tears, energy, and the will to keep going. She cried until she was empty. She didn’t know if that was good or bad, just that there was nothing left to feel.

She sat on the sofa, wrung out like an old dish towel. Her head hurt like hell. Her ears were ringing and replaying the thumps of her pulse. She had no idea how bad she looked, but she was long past being embarrassed. But she didn’t want to look at her partner, who sat steadfastly beside her. She sighed, exhausted, and wondered what time it was. She looked at her kitchen clock, but her swollen eyes wouldn’t let her see that far. Well, it didn’t matter.

The crying had taken a lot out of her, and when she began to shiver, she wrapped herself tightly in a light afghan. Mulder made tea, which she sipped slowly. They sat silently, side by side on the sofa, for nearly half an hour. She was grateful that tomorrow was Sunday, so she could have more time to recover from this. There would be more, and she didn’t know when it would hit or where it would take her, but at least the worst of it was over. For now.

The phone rang, and she flinched at the sound. Without a word, Mulder got up and picked up the receiver. “Hello?” He glanced at her. “Oh, hi, Mrs. Scully.” She looked away. “No, I’m sorry, she just stepped out. …I’ll tell her.” He put down the receiver. “She called to see how you’re doing. Call her in the morning.” She nodded.

He stood by the sofa, suddenly ill at ease, and glanced at the door. He gazed at her and said softly, “You going to be okay?” She nodded. “Want me to stick around?” She shook her head, then got up slowly.

She gave him a small hug of farewell and thanks, the afghan bunching up between them. He gave her an encouraging smile, and she managed to give him a small one back. He turned, and she stepped to the door with him. As he turned the latch, something occurred to her. “Mulder, why did you come over here tonight?”

He glanced down with a small shrug and shook his head slightly. That gesture might have told someone else that he thought it wasn’t important, but she knew it really meant that he didn’t want to talk about it. “What?” He shook his head again, but he didn’t make eye contact. She put her hand on his arm. “What is it?”

He glanced at her, then scanned the room without looking at anything. “Today’s my dad’s birthday.”

Her dry eyes grew red, and she put a tender hand on his cheek. “I’m sorry.”

He offered the slightest of shrugs as he looked at her. “That’s okay. I wanted something to take my mind off it.”

They stood together in the doorway, her hands resting on his arm. There was no energy left for guilt or recriminations, just a final moment of shared sorrow and loss. He said gently, “Call me if you need to.”

She nodded. “You, too.”

He nodded, then slipped out into the hallway.

She closed the door and wrapped the afghan tight around her as she stood on the spot where the stain had been, where it always would be. She sighed, and then put the tea away.

***

**Author's Note:**

> I confess I wrote this out of frustration. The X-Files writers and producers loved to put our hero and heroine through the wringer, but then they never had the characters deal with the emotional consequences - they'd just blithely have them move on as if nothing happened. That's not how humans operate.
> 
> I do not own the rights to the characters and scenarios from The X-Files television series. I do own the rights to my original characters, plot elements, and settings that appear in my fiction. No financial benefit has been derived from the creation of this fan fiction, not even a free drink at a con. I am immensely grateful to the owners, developers, and creative partners of The X-Files universe for their artistry and vision.


End file.
